Stylish new hotels in Spain
There can't be many hotels that house a parlour lined with gleaming walnut cabinets where you can order a set of candy-coloured, hand-stitched shirts, but that's all part of the charm at this new Marriott Autograph property, set in an elegant mansion on the city's Gran Vía. It's a fabulously ostentatious spot, dripping with original Belle Epoque features such as the cotton-flower-shaped chandelier above a sweeping marble staircase that rises to the first-floor reception rooms, where there are 19th-century parquet floors worn glossy with age and carved wooden ceilings inset with cherubic friezes. With all this grandeur it could have ended up feeling a bit formal, but designer Lázaro Rosa-Violán has lavished his customary irreverent touches on the place: a pair of power-blue leather armchairs in the library to match a marble-toned Moroccan rug; chintzy cushions scattered along a bench; floor-to-ceiling windows to draw in sun beams from the hotel's patio de manzana. Although this traditional light-giving space has been vamped up with decking and banana palms, the smart apartments that surround it give a real sense of having landed in the bosom of the beau monde.

Here, a dirty Martini is a perfect sharpener to a light lunch, before a snooze by the pool or under the high-thread-count sheets in your coolly minimalist room.